The study's author, John Lester, says that half of these huge
subsidies fail to improve economic performance and therefore constitute a
colossal waste of government revenue.
...
While Ottawa and the provinces maintain and even increase the amounts
of their tax revenue expended on business subsidies, they have
proportionately limited their spending on social services.

The latest OECD report on the social expenditures of its 34 member
countries ranks Canada 24th for the relatively low 17.2 per cent of GDP
it spent on social services in 2016. Most of the 23 countries that
surpass Canada have social spending rates of 23 per cent of GDP or more.
Some, including Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Belgium,
Italy and Ireland, have rates higher than 28 per cent. Incredibly, even
the United States ranks above Canada with a social spending rate of 19.3
per cent of GDP.

The preference of Canadian governments to serve the interests of big
business and the rich elite rather than the broader public interest has
had appalling consequences. They include our ailing health care system,
our lackluster performance on the environment, our mistreatment of
indigenous peoples, and, most of all, our disgracefully steep rate of
child poverty and our abysmally low level of child care.

- Elizabeth McSheffrey reports on the growing gap between the billionaire class and the rest of us. Jordan Weismann discusses the link between corporate monopsony and stagnant wages. And Alana Semuels takes note of a growing class divide within the U.S.' labour movement, which is holding its ground among white-collar workers while struggling to organize their blue-collar counterparts.

- Laurie Monsebraaten examines the gap between the needs of Toronto's homeless citizens. And the
Telegraph reports on Jeremy Corbyn's simple and direct plan to provide houses to the people who need them.

- Finally, Edward Keenan explains why Patrick Brown and other politicians who recognize the need to address perception in every other aspect of their public presentation can't expect the benefit of the doubt in the face of credible accusations of sexual exploitation.